The Earl of Listowel: rose to call attention to the key findings and recommendations of Safeguarding Children: the second joint Chief Inspectors' Report on Arrangements to Safeguard Children and to the pending Government response; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak in this debate on this important and authoritative report. I am aware of the limits of my own experience, and I am most grateful that a former chief inspector of prisons, a former director of social services, a former chief inspector of social services and parents of children with disability, together with many other experienced contributors, will be participating this morning.
	I intend to highlight the importance of this report, attempt to put into context, give a definition of safeguarding, look at the sources of the information in the report, consider some of its themes, look particularly at social work and consider the report's recommendations and their implementation. The report has personal importance to me because I am sick and tired of seeing young people entering the doors of organisations such as Centrepoint who have been so damaged and have experienced such prolonged neglect that they can no longer accept help or be given it and who are eventually excluded from the hostel or simply drift back on to the streets again. If we could intervene more effectively to support children in their families and to support their families, some of these young people would avoid a very unhappy outcome.
	I also tabled this debate for a personal reason: I am very concerned about those who work directly with children and families, and the report highlights particular concerns about social workers. I shall discuss those concerns in detail.
	I note that your Lordships are concerned not simply with narrow issues concerning vulnerable children but with the general public good. I draw noble Lords' attention to the fact that we are an ageing population. In seven or eight years' time there will be as many people over the age of 65 as there are under the age of 16. According to Eurostat, by 2010 deaths in the EU25 will outnumber births. It is estimated that on current trends, by 2025 there will be a shortfall of 20 million workers across the European Union. Our children have never been more important to us in terms of the success of our economy.
	When we fail to intervene on those occasions when it is possible to do so, and fail to support families and children early in their development, we pay a great price later. A survey in the 1990s pointed to the fact that on leaving care 25 per cent of young women were mothers and that within a year 50 per cent were mothers. The Social Exclusion Unit's report drew attention to the fact that 25 per cent of the prison population had experience of care. In a recent survey of a narrow survey group by the National Children's Bureau it was found that 20 per cent of children in custody had been through care and that a further 25 per cent had some experience of care. So for the first 20 per cent there had been particular statutory duties towards them.
	The context of this debate is perhaps best set by the report of my noble friend Lord Laming into the death of Victoria Climbié. He pointed to the failures in accountability and to the failures in the sharing of information. Also, highlighted in the report were the circumstances in which the social workers operated. At the time Victoria's case was handled by Brent all the duty social workers had received their training abroad and were on temporary contracts. Several workers in the child protection team were also recruited on a temporary basis. It was a team under pressure, overbusy and very short of permanent and experienced staff. Given the caseload in June 1999, it was very hard for people to stand back and consider what was happening. That we had lost our ability to be social workers was the point underlined by my noble friend, Lord Laming. That was the situation in Brent. In Haringey, a social worker was supposed to manage a maximum of 12 cases and she was managing 19. There were very serious concerns about the quality of supervision.
	The first report from the joint chief inspectors landed on our desks at a similar time to that report's publication. In the mean time we have had the 10-year plan for change from the National Health Service—the National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services. All these factors are fed into current government policy, and the Children Act 2004 established five outcomes for children, to which all agencies must work to improve the futures of our children.
	The definition of "safeguarding" is a coin with two sides according to the inspectors. First, it means to take all reasonable means to prevent harm to children by avoiding the circumstances in which they may be harmed; and, secondly, when their welfare is being undermined, it means to take action together, according to clear procedures and protocols, to take that child out of harm's way. The inspectors also draw attention to the comments of Sir William Utting—the need to be proactive in order to protect children's welfare. I remember well what Sir William Utting said in his 1997 report People like us. He said that the best protection for children is an environment of overall excellence.
	The sources of the report were the inspectorates which cover all our public services. They have undertaken specific reports into safeguarding. It also draws on the ongoing reports that they make of institutions. In the course of inspection this year I have visited a children's home, a local authority secure unit and an immigration removal centre. Inspectors have been nurses, teachers and former prison governors.
	Perhaps there is some concern that inspectors are being asked to cover some areas with which they are not completely comfortable. I heard a children's home manager say she was concerned that the inspector did not have the experience to do the job that he was undertaking; but overall my sense is that professionals are looking very carefully and rigorously at what is being delivered.
	Furthermore, the Children's Rights Director has consulted with children and has reported on children in boarding schools, and, very importantly, on children who are privately fostered; and recently I attended a meeting where he was consulting with young carers.
	So, this report is the most authoritative source of information for us to see how things have changed since the 2002 report of my noble friend Lord Laming.
	Themes covered by the report include how far prioritising and safeguarding has improved. In 2002 area child protection committees were often poorly funded and low priority was given to their work. Since then, the inspectors have found significant improvement in that area and they look forward to the establishment of the new, replacement local area safeguarding boards and the possibilities that they will bring with them. There is a distinct sense of improvement in safeguarding, but there are continuing concerns, especially regarding children with disabilities, children who are 15, 16 or 17 with mental health and chronic health conditions, 15, 16 and 17 year-olds placed inappropriately in custody and adoption placements.
	I had experience some years ago of working with and caring for a child who was aggressive and large for his age. I was concerned that he might hurt other children or run away. It was only on the third day of working with that child that I learned from what he said that he had just been placed in a new adoption placement. It was scandalous that I did not know that that child was going through such a difficult time. If he had been excluded from that childcare placement because it had broken down, it might have jeopardised that new adoption placement. How would he have felt if that had fallen through?
	The report considers the voice of the child. Children's voices are clearly being attended to far more effectively than in the past, although there is still considerable concern that what they say is not feeding through into action. There is concern about overly heavy-handed use of force to control behaviour. At the local authority secure unit that I visited, the inspector was careful not to step into the boys' rooms and warned me to be extremely careful but, at the end of the inspection, she said how remarkably behaviour had improved in the short time since her last inspection. She put that down to a change in the overall policy of behaviour management. One of the managers of several children's homes that were grouped together emphasised the importance of a direct relationship with young people. Good thinking can lead to the avoidance of the use of unnecessary force—sometimes it is necessary.
	There have been improvements in identifying welfare concerns and acting on them. Although the overall number of children on the child protection register has not changed since 2002–04, in some areas there is better co-operation, avoiding leaving it until the stage when a child protection intervention has to be made. Children are being supported in their families by other agencies earlier on. However, significant concerns remain, especially for children with disabilities. A further specific and important concern is that thresholds in some authorities for child protection intervention are set too high because of resource problems. Thirdly, because some social services are unable to respond to families requiring support, other agencies do not refer children when concerns about their welfare first emerge. That means that some families are subject to unavoidable pressure. Children may experience preventable abuse or neglect and relationships between social services and other agencies may become strained. There is concern that there is not the capacity as things stand fully to implement the Government's agenda in this area.
	There is considerable concern about asylum-seeking children, especially those placed in immigration removal centres. One understands that this area needs very careful management. There have been improvements in the workforce in some areas there and it is encouraging that this year there has been some improvement in recruiting field social workers. However, the report highlights the continuing difficulty in recruiting and retaining social workers. The vacancy rate for children's social workers has improved, from 11.8 per cent to 11.4 per cent; however, in the same period, use of temporary agency workers increased from 1 per cent to 2.3 per cent. That is an extremely expensive and unsatisfactory way to meet needs.
	The crisis in social work has endured for many years, as my noble friend Lord Northbourne continually points out. That has very serious implications for children's welfare. Social workers do not receive the supervision that they need to do that important work. The Government need a stronger focus on social work. They need someone like Louise Casey, with her good work in the Rough Sleepers Unit on anti-social behaviour, to focus on understanding the problem and to address it with energy.
	There is not time for me to speak further now. All the important recommendations of this authoritative report must be implemented effectively. I look forward to hearing from the Minister details of how implementation will take place, what sort of time-scale there will be and who will be responsible for implementing each recommendation. I see that my time is up. I look forward to the Minister's response.